Editor’s Note: The Unknown Blogger has made several appearances here at Dubsism, and this probably won’t be the last.
For purposes of full disclosure, T.U.B. only pops up on this site from time to time as he left the world of professional sports journalism a few years back vowing never to return, but occasionally he can’t help but having a rant here.
On of the best things about getting away from my old sports media gig is I don’t have to deal with dead brains like this anymore.
For purposes of fairness, let’s look at his full quote. The only way to appreciate how fucking stupid this is to break it down piece by piece. But even before I do that, let’s stipulate a couple of things.
First of all, Samson worked for the Marlins. Baseball is very regional, and Florida isn’t one of those regions. Just look at the Marlins’ attendance figures. In 2025, Miami had the lowest attendance of any major-league team that wasn’t temporarily playing in a minor-league facility. That stayed true for the Marlins preliminary attendance-per-game numbers in 2026, only the nomadic Athletics drew less fans. If nobody is willing to come to the ball park, they’re not likely to watch on television or tune in on the radio.
That leads to the second point. I’m not interested in listening to the thoughts on the viability of any medium from a guy peddling a crap product. Since their last World Series title in 2003, the Marlins have made exactly two playoff appearances…in which they did not win a single game. Again, the medium is irrelevant if nobody’s interested in what you’re selling.
Keeping those things in mind, let’s get back to the actual quotes from this dumbass.
“”You require to have baseball and radio because everybody hasn’t died yet who grew up listening to baseball on the radio. But guess what? That generation is going to die at some point.”
~David Samson
Don’t forget, this guy’s in Miami, a place so full of retirees Stewie Griffin ponce referred to it as “God’s waiting room.” Not to mention, a huge number of those people are from two of the regions where baseball is hugely popular; the Northeast and the Midwest. In other words, this dildo is decrying the value of radio when he has a preponderance of the very demographic for whom he’s simply waiting to die.
““The difference between TV and radio is disappearing before our very eyes. We don’t need baseball on radio anymore. The only reason we have baseball on radio is so people can feel better about what baseball means to them.”
~David Samson
Jesus H. Christ, this dipshit couldn’t be anymore dense if you gave him an electrically-powered, fully automated “being dense” machine. Making “people feel better about what baseball means to them” is half of the sport’s core appeal. Baseball is woven into American culture, and it’s propensity for nostalgia is exactly is what draws those retirees.
On top of that, it’s that same emotional connection to baseball which makes movies like The Bad News Bears, Bull Durham, and Major League become beloved classics. They wouldn’t be able to do that if there weren’t a cultural component to the game engrained in all of us. Perhaps it’s this ham-brained approach which explains why the Marlins can’t draw fans.
But the final nail in the coffin of this doofus’ argument comes in the form of subscription services like Sirius XM. Another thing defining Americans beyond our love of sports is our roots as a decidedly are car-based society. Whether it’s an over-the-road trucker or a guy with an hour-long commute to his office, we spend a lot of time in our cars. According to the people at AAA, we spend on average 51 minutes per day driving…which adds up to roughly 300 hours per year. In other words, don’t tell me a professional sport on the verge of a lockout because it’s owners can’t stop chasing each other up the money tree can afford to ignore such a revenue stream.
The bottom line is there will always be a market for audio-only sports content. Given that, anybody who tries to tell me baseball “doesn’t need radio” is an idiot. That’s probably why Samson is a “former” baseball executive.
You can see all our signs we are near the end of civilization here.
Got a question, comment, or just want to yell at us? Hit us up at dubsism@yahoo.com, @Dubsism on X, or on our Pinterest, Tumblr, BlueSky, Truth Social, or Instagram, or Facebook pages, and be sure to bookmark Dubsism.com so you don’t miss anything from the most interesting independent sports blog on the web.
